Sanae Takaichi presented a more moderate image during the ruling party’s leadership election to allay concerns among lawmakers wary of her hard-line conservative views.

But now that she has won the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party and will likely become prime minister in a Diet vote, political observers and the public are looking for clues on whether she will revert back and pursue her nationalist policies.

One issue that has repeatedly come up is whether she would visit Yasukuni Shrine as prime minister.

At a news conference after being elected LDP president on Oct. 4, she repeated the ambiguous response she had given during the campaign.

“Yasukuni Shrine is a central facility for commemorating the war dead and a sanctuary for peace,” Takaichi said. “I will make a decision on how to pay my respects and pray for peace at an appropriate time and in an appropriate manner.”

In last year’s LDP presidential election, Takaichi had clearly stated her intention to visit the Tokyo shrine, where 14 Class-A war criminals are honored along with the nation’s war dead.

“At an appropriate time, I want to visit properly, calmly and as I usually do,” she said.

The markedly different stance reflects her campaign’s strategy in the latest party election.

Midway through the leadership race, a senior campaign official said: “Local votes will go to Takaichi. What we need are votes from Diet members.”

The official added, “As arranged, Takaichi will say nothing about Yasukuni.”

Takaichi holds a strong personal commitment to visiting the shrine, which is seen as a symbol of Japan’s wartime militarism in Asian countries, such as China and South Korea.

In February 2022, at a symposium hosted by an association that supports Yasukuni Shrine, Takaichi was asked if she would definitely visit the Shinto shrine, even as prime minister.

She declared her resolve to do so.

“I believe that stopping visits midway or acting half-heartedly only emboldens the other side,” she said. “No matter how much criticism I face, I will continue calmly and matter-of-factly.”

Takaichi views herself as carrying on the political legacy of Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister who was assassinated in July 2022.

Abe visited Yasukuni Shrine just once during his lengthy second administration, in December 2013.

In speeches, Takaichi has often cited “defending the nation’s sovereignty and honor to the end” as one of the state’s ultimate missions.

She said her view of the nation was shaped by her upbringing.

By her own account, Takaichi grew up in a “perfectly ordinary dual-income household,” with her father employed by a manufacturer and her mother working for the Nara prefectural police.

In a magazine interview published in 2000, she described herself as “a big fan of the Imperial Rescript on Education,” explaining that her parents had read the entire text aloud to her from a young age.

The Diet revoked the document in 1948 as being incompatible with the postwar Constitution, which stipulates the principle of popular sovereignty.

From her days as a young lawmaker, Takaichi gained attention as a hawkish commentator on television.

In a column, Takaichi recalled an appearance on a commercial TV program in August 2002. The host asked her if she thought the wars following the Manchurian Incident of 1931 were “wars of self-preservation and self-defense” for Japan.

“I believe they were wars fought for security,” she replied.

After the host criticized her remarks and the program ended, Takaichi wrote a rebuttal in her column.

She prefaced her argument by acknowledging that from the perspective of “modern people’s values” shaped by postwar education and “current international law,” most combat operations conducted within another country’s territory or airspace would be considered “acts of aggression.”

She went on to write: “If the question is whether they were wars of self-preservation and self-defense for Japan, then I believe they were.”

In a dialogue published in a monthly magazine in 2010, Takaichi indicated that if she became prime minister, she would issue a new historical view to nullify the 1995 Murayama Statement, in which then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama offered an apology to Asian nations over Japan’s wartime acts.

“There was an unfortunate era in the past when wars continued, and Japan also fought wars for self-preservation and self-defense,” she said.

After Abe’s death in 2022, expectations grew among conservative groups that Takaichi would become prime minister to carry on his legacy.

Her official website lists her as vice chair of a caucus of Diet members for the conservative organization Nippon Kaigi (Japan Conference).

In last year’s LDP leadership race, her second attempt, she received support from local assembly members affiliated with Nippon Kaigi, but she lost to Shigeru Ishiba in a runoff vote.

In a conversation with journalist Yoshiko Sakurai published in a magazine this year, Takaichi said even “close associates” had scolded her after that election, attributing her defeat to her public commitment to visiting Yasukuni and her opposition to allowing married couples to use separate surnames.

However, she also said, “People say all sorts of things, but I have not really reflected much on my stance on Yasukuni Shrine and the separate surnames issue.”

Although she projected a “moderate conservative” image in the latest LDP leadership race, there is a view within her camp that she overwhelmed the other four contenders in votes from party members and fraternity members nationwide because they are seeking a return to traditional values and appreciate her staunch conservative stance.

It remains to be seen whether the new Takaichi administration will adopt a pragmatic course and play it safe or put conservative principles front and center and roll out changes from the Ishiba administration.